3M Express Therapy Portal
At 3M, I worked as part of the Medical Solutions Division (MSD) team and the Food Safety Division (FSD) for the Healthcare Business Group. I worked as part of an amazing multi-disciplinary team, with UX designers, Industrial designers and design researchers. Working as a design researcher, I got to lead and support several design projects working on UX, hard goods and service design projects.
Medical Solutions Division
Design Researcher > Healthcare > 7 months
The Medical Solutions Division (MSD) was tasked with the re-launch of the Express Therapy Portal that was inherited as a result of the KCI acquisition. We took this opportunity to re-design the portal’s branding along with system work flows.
Concept:
The 3M™ Express Therapy Portal is an online e-commerce platform specifically designed to support both, the internal sales teams and healthcare providers in managing negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) for chronic wounds.
The Express Therapy Portal was re-built from the ground up to replace the outdated order channels and to modernize the front-end technology infrastructure. This upgrade streamlines the ordering process and include future innovative solutions that enhance customer experience and operational efficiency.
3M™ Express Therapy Portal launched in November 2023, and is expected to handle over $400 million in annual revenue.
Objectives
I joint the team as a supporting design researcher. For this project, I conducted user research with internal stakeholders, including sales representatives, managers, customer service reps and order processors.
Interviews: I conducted 3 rounds of user-testing with internal stakeholders for low-fidelity until high-fidelity prototypes. The tests were conducted remotely, using Miro for the testing the wireframes, and later we progressed to testing the higher fidelity prototypes, built in Figma. The research findings from each phase of testing was compiled in detailed reports and shared with the rest of the UX team.
Top pain points:
Problems with Workflow - Participants were actually frustrated with the order process, rather than the original therapy portal’s order input system
Tedious Manual Processes - Fragment systems, often resulted in duplicative efforts and manual processing to move an order further along in the process
Lack of Automated Order Updates - Order information and requirements were all manual. Phone calls, Teams chats, emails and texts were frequently used to complete tasks like releasing an order
Overburdened Sales Reps - Sales reps were especially frustrated due to the high volume of requests, as they managed both, their own orders and those placed by customers
Documentation Challenges - Many clinical documents are required for insurance approval and payment, and without EMR integration, clinicians are forced to print and fax to submit documents.
~95% acute orders
for hospitals & skilled nursing facilities through legacy Express
Refine, Build, Test, Repeat
We conducted 4 rounds of prototype testing, refining key sections of the site. Research insights were used to write epics and user stories for development.
As mentioned previously, after multiple round of refinement, user testing and development, the new version was launched as 3M Express Therapy Portal in November of 2023.
Modernize Technology
Modernizing the antiquated backend systems of the Express Therapy would be a strategic investment for implementing future enhancements.
Consistent Experience
By creating a reliable and unified portal system - 3 legacy products will be allowed to sunset. Each of these legacy products had a slightly different user experience, set of features and order requirements.
Improve Ease of Doing Business
The #1 reported request by customers was “ease of doing business”. Ease of learnability is vital for customers as they work in a fast pace setting. They need to keep up with regular software updates quickly to use the platform optimally.
Above, is the blueprint that maps out the very intricate home order process - starting from when a physician assesses the patient, orders a wound VAC, until the VAC has been used and returned to the Advantage Center (where the devices are returned for maintenance and sanitation).
On the right is a super simple visual representation of who and how people would interact with the 3M Express Therapy Portal.
Legacy Digital Channels
Current State - The legacy 3M Express website launched in 2007 followed by the iOnHealing and iOnSupport apps in 2016. Improvements have been made, however they are no longer supportive of the current customer experience. Each platform served different primary user groups, and while they all had some overlap in functions, they were isolated.
There is a desire for a consistent, one-stop shop solution.
More Efficient Order Processing
Digitizing orders and therapy management would require less touches, resulting in fewer errors than phone and fax. Continuing to convert more customers to digital will improve revenue recognition.
What are we talking about?
The Express Therapy Portal is basically an online dashboard, through which clinicians and sales reps can manage their patients’ wound care, including documentation, patient information, ordering and dispatching home health supplies which include 3M’s NPWT Wound VACs. We had to re-fresh this portal and re-brand it to reflect 3M’s branding since it had recently been acquired from KCI.
Stakeholder Map
The ideal “happy path” for an order process would usually touch up to 8 different people/teams depending on different variables.
40k+ monthly users
mostly on the legacy 3M Express website
What we did
$420M in revenue
flowed through digital channels in 2021
Project Impact
~60% home orders
passes through one of the 3 digital channels
User Testing Sessions
